Turkish-backed forces critically injure man at home in Afrin: Monitor

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A man was seriously injured in the Kurdish city of Afrin, Syria, after Turkish-backed militants entered his home and opened fire on him, a war monitor reported on Sunday.
 
A military group affiliated with the Sultan Murad Division “raided the home of a civilian in Afrin city and opened fire on him while he was in bed,” the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said in the report.
 
The man was transported to hospital and he is in critical condition, according to SOHR, adding that the raid occurred after the man had asked the rebels for the return of his store property, which the group previously had forcibly seized.

The Sultan Murad Division is an armed group within the Syrian National Army (SNA), a coalition of forces that is backed by Turkey against Damascus in the Syrian conflict.

Afrin is a Kurdish city in northwestern Syria that Turkey and its Syrian mercenaries invaded after they launched a military operation against Kurdish fighters in January 2018. Since then, the members of the pro-Turkey groups have been accused of violating the rights of Kurds, as well as cutting down farmers’ olive trees. 

Human rights groups and the United Nations have published reports detailing arbitrary arrests, detention, pillaging, and other violations against Kurds in Afrin.

As a result, the city’s Kurdish population fell by more than 60 percent in the first two years of the invasion alone, according to Afrin’s Human Rights Organization.